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Costly mistakes in a fight for social change hurt the amount of difference we can make.  Now that we have covered what systems are like in the last few posts, we can get to making our case that: “Because you’re doing it all wrong, it seems like what we are doing is wrong”.  To get here, we first looked at “the science of how systems hold together”, then we looked at how that played out in social systems.  Now we are going look at how things that look great at first glance can look bad when informed by what systems science shows these forces actuallyRead More →

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*Since social systems are open systems, they follow the unseen rules governing systems. They aren’t exceptions to those rules!  That’s important since these unseen rules create unseen factors. Something doesn’t have to be seen to be crucial.  These factors related to stability and negentropy are like countless roots intertwined in everything about the social systems we live within. Follow-up notice: Don’t worry too much about getting the terms right. They are just there because some people learning this may want to learn it, terms and all. The examples are there for you to follow along either way, and they have both visual aids and familiarRead More →

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Systems science covers how basic working elements of systems enable open systems to operate and survive in a universe that would otherwise rip them apart. This is a universal discipline that is depended on in countless professions and fields of science.  Without systems science, a lot of the picture gets missed.  Understanding these basics will be vital for understanding why this organization takes the stances it takes, so hopefully, this crash course will make our stances make more sense by making systems science easier to understand. Follow-up notice: Don’t worry too much about getting the terms right. They are just there because some people learning thisRead More →

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In: Logic, Morality, Philosophy
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RtAVM looks to have violated one of their own rules (5), with their handling of the sexy swearing Jesus meme.  I’m not a theist, so I’m desensitized from being personally offended by it.  My first thought was about how funny a major mistake in the meme was.  The crown of thorns is horrible for anyone, but but who would put that on a baby?  And in 2017, with all the great memes out there, a swearing Jesus or a sexy Jesus needs something else to really be funny.  It’s definitely not something I would call a hill to die on for the sake of humor. Read More →

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In: Epistemology, Logic, Morality, Philosophy, Uncategorized
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In this post, we will look how concepts are actually lenses, and how this helps us better understand morality.  Part of the case will include how concepts are specific sets of criteria that narrow options down, and make it possible for us to observe, understand, and act with better precision. We will also cover what the largely unrecognized function of using lenses for decision-making is about, and why morality is justified on a basis that draws from concepts being lenses. In addition, justification for Sam Harris’* Moral Landscape position about thriving being morally good will be presented, along with lens-based insight on how thriving helpsRead More →

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In the previous post(1), I shared four steps based on REBT(2), to quickly help lower your distress or frustration about something. Here is a slightly improved version of the steps: Why replace the absolutes and add potentials(3) through adding “if”? We do it because we get rid of too many potentials if we aren’t careful. This happens because we think by narrowing down potentials. Look at how we do it with stuff, (in this case, a small spoon):Read More →

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There Are a Lot of Different Situations Where We Feel We Just Can’t Handle It There are times when something’s really difficult, or when we see a belief that seems so wrong, or when someone does something so bad that we could lose our patience. Receptive skeptics may feel like they can’t help but scorn things that look too terrible and harmful to not. There are also times when your thoughts about yourself leave you feeling you just can’t handle it. You may scorn yourself, diminish your value, or sell your abilities short. In this post, I’m going to lay out four steps you canRead More →

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It is one thing to be a rational thinker when it comes to science.  But rational thinkers should also not be experiencing unnecessary interpersonal conflict, being too hard on themselves, feeling a situation is worse than it is, or being too hard on others.  They should be managing their emotions to better build resistance against faulty beliefs.  But without understanding how to do that, (especially when Receptive Skepticism comes out against scorning), managing emotions wouldn’t make much sense.​ Emotion Management Is Something for Doing on Your Own with No OversightReceptive Skepticism kind of takes cognitive restructuring for granted, but I have been shocked to haveRead More →

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A while back, I had a conversation with some online friends about science communication.  And in that conversation, a friend brought up a problem there was with using “science communicator” as a broad term, as so many were doing.  I was pretty swayed by the conversation, and started promoting the term Science Advocate among friends as an alternative for most people. But I have also seen how there has been a struggle to fit everything under that niche, and how there was a lot of confusion in the process because of that.  I think that we need to get something like this breakdown as aRead More →

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Not Just Any Emotion: Shame in Behavioral Science CrosshairsPsychologist Karen Horney viewed it with the intensity needed to call it a Tyranny.  The father of therapy through teaching rational thinking, Albert Ellis, zeroed in on shame as the source of a large amount of distress and mental health problems, denouncing the shame and even called it  “Musterbation”.  And it continues to be seen as problematic to this day, being described as the root behind most psychological problems, and perpetuating the problem it is trying to solve. I am keeping the links simple for easy reading, but even this opposing case notes that there is a reallyRead More →